Statements of support made Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) officials in favour of the opposition implies an implicit support to the Turkish government, said the opposition’s presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on Monday.
Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), for the first time has answered questions about the PKK’s stance on the upcoming 14 May elections, during an interview with NTV.
“There is something called reason, there is something called logic. If a terrorist organisation comes and says ‘I support you’, it means it infact supports the other side,” he said, when asked his opinion on the statements of support made by the PKK headquarters in north Iraq’s Qandil.
Kılıçdaroğlu’s statement came after the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday showed a fake video linking Kılıçdaroğlu to the PKK during a mass rally in Istanbul.
The footage Erdoğan showed to his 1.7 million supporters gathered at Istanbul Atatürk airport, ended with the election campaign video of Kılıçdaroğlu, but with added footage featuring the PKK’s acting leader Murat Karayılan and other members of the Kurdish group, as if they were a part of Kılıçdaroğlu’s campaign.
The video, produced using deep fake techniques, was the government’s latest effort to attack the opposition candidate over alleged ties to the PKK, using as evidence the support that the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party’s (HDP) has given to to Kılıçdaroğlu in the presidential race.
The statements made by PKK executives calling on people to overthrow Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government with their votes on 14 May have been used continuously as a propaganda tool against the opposition by the pro-government media.
On the country’s Kurdish question, the opposition candidate has so far only expressed a willingness to discuss a solution to the issue in the Turkish parliament.
